Skype’s new feature will blur that bong you forgot was sitting right behind you

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Look, we get it. With that big video-conference call fast approaching, and all those reports your manager made you pull together at the last freaking minute, it’s totally understandable that you forgot all about that huge bong sitting on the shelf right behind you. 

Thankfully, Skype gets it too. The video chat service you never knew was so chill has a new feature that totally has you covered. It’s called background blur, and it’s here to save you from all kinds of potential video call embarrassments. 

“[Background blur] takes the stress out of turning on your video and puts the focus where it belongs—on you,” explains Skype. “With a simple toggle, right-click, or even through your Skype settings, your background will be instantly and subtly blurred, leaving just you as the only focal point.” Read more…

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Bunch scores $3.8M to turn mobile games into video chat LAN parties

The best parts of gaming are the jokes and trash talk with friends. Whether it was four-player Goldeneye or linking up PCs for Quake battles in the basement, the social element keeps video games exciting. Yet on mobile we’ve lost a lot of that, playing silently by ourselves even if we’re in a squad with […]

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So I sent my mom that newfangled Facebook Portal

“Who am I going to be worried about? Oh Facebook seeing? No, I’m not worried about Facebook seeing. They’re going to look at my great art collection and say they want to come steal it? No, I never really thought about it.” That’s my 72-year-old mother Sally Constine’s response to whether she’s worried about her […]

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Group FaceTime isn’t arriving in September

Group FaceTime’s launch is going to be delayed. The feature, which supports up to 32 people in a single audio or video call, was pulled from the latest iOS 12 and macOS Mojave betas released on Monday, and will be held until a later date, says Apple. According to the company’s Release Notes for both […]

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Speech recognition triggers fun AR stickers in Panda’s video app

Panda has built the next silly social feature Snapchat and Instagram will want to steal. Today the startup launches its video messaging app that fills the screen with augmented reality effects based on the words you speak. Say “Want to get pizza?” and a 3D pizza slice hovers by your mouth. Say “I wear my […]

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Zoosk relaunches dating app Lively as a way to meet new people while playing trivia games

Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of trivia applications like HQ Trivia, dating app maker Zoosk has just released an experimental app that combines trivia with the potential for meeting someone new. The app is a relaunch and complete makeover of Zoosk’s Lively, which first debuted in July 2016 as a dating app that used […]

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Snap Interactive, quietly settling with Snap over trademark infringement, changes name to PeerStream

 Back in 2016 after Snapchat rebranded the company name to Snap Inc to reflect its status as a camera company and more than just Snapchat, an existing publicly-traded business by the name of Snap Interactive filed a trademark infringement lawsuit to bar the change. Snap Interactive’s concern: it was already distributing social network apps and using the name Snap in association with… Read More

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Facebook to reportedly release an Echo Show competitor with facial recognition

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Facebook wants you to video chat on its platform, so it’s taking on Amazon, Google, and Apple with hardware of its own. 

The company will release Portal later this year, Cheddar learned in an exclusive report. It will be something like Amazon’s Echo Show, a voice-controlled smart speaker with a screen.

Reports about the video chat device came out last year, but more details — like the name “Portal” — have now been revealed. It looks like a speaker patent discovered last year is part of the Portal project.

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Facebook adds support for live streaming and video chats to Messenger games

 Last November, Facebook launched Instant Games, a new platform for gaming with friends inside the Messenger chat app. Today, the company is announcing a couple of notable new features for this gaming platform, including support for live streaming via Facebook Live and video chatting with fellow gamers. The idea with Instant Games is to boost people’s time spent in Messenger by giving… Read More

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